By the Numbers

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Some Reasons People Believe in God

                     Some Reasons People Believe in God

Atheists who deny a Creator and Sustainer of the universe show a terrible arrogance toward theists and especially Christians. They point to plants, animals, sky, ground and say, see there's no God! We're just animals who die and that's all there is! Christians who talk about God and an afterlife are really stupid maybe even brain dead. But could atheists be overlooking so much that a little honest thought makes obvious? Could what they call wishful Christian thinking really show rebellious atheist arrogance, maybe even fear of giving account of their rebellious lives to God?
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Christians reply. Honestly, if God created this material universe, wouldn't He have to exist before and apart from the matter, space, and time He created? Wouldn't God then be of an immaterial nature or spirit we normally wouldn't see? And to sustain His universe, wouldn't God have to have infinite power, be everywhere and know everything? Might it be a bit premature for atheists to claim the Almighty must show up at their command, or He doesn't exist?  Do they know the Almighty couldn't show up at his appointed time and place and for his purpose unknown to them? Actually, such attributes are what the Bible says and what Christians believe about God (Genesis 1:1; Exodus 3:14). Could atheist objections really show bias or lack clear thinking?
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Scientists work on the principle that every beginning thing has a cause. Common sense shows from nothing, nothing comes. Nothing means no thing--no mind, no power, no force. An expanding universe points to a central beginning point. A running down universe like a clock means it was once wound up. Most scientists believe in the Big Bang which requires a beginning universe. And if time could go back into the past forever, we would never be here today. A beginning universe then, depends on an unchangeable, self-existent eternal God as its Cause.
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 What does the anthropic principle tell  us about the universe? We see such exactness of hundreds of factors working together in order for man to arrive on this planet. Such as earth's just right size, molten core, this crust, climate, rotation, revolution, gravity, chemical composition, magnetism, atmosphere, distance from sun, one moon, its size & distance, water and right amount, place in solar system, in galaxy and well over a hundred other exact factors. Blind random chance doesn't explain this, but an intelligent Creative Mind does.  It seems God must have some purpose in mind for us. Could it be a personal love-trust relationship with Him?
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What does nature's order and rationality tell us? Nature's orderliness shows-- means adapted to ends, birds wings are designed for flying, animal legs for walking, fish fins for swimming, eyes and ears to know surroundings. There can be no partially developed reproductive or digestive systems or limbs or organs. Take anything away and the animal perishes. Moreover, geological strata show life forms completely developed and functional from outset until extinction Nature shows order and rationality that our minds can understand. Doesn't all this show Creation true and evolution myth?
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Can blind mindless molecules select and arrange chemicals into life forms? No! Animals are genetically programmad to reproduct after their own kind but in great variety. In other words, dogs birth varieties of dogs but never birth horses--its small changes in kind, but not one kind changing into another. Mutations are coping errors, usually harmful and eliminated.The genetic code within life forms shows intelligent intervention and they can't be reduced or they perish. There form and function is complex and specified at the outset  that shows a self-existing creative Mind.
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Life forms show a genetic alphabet of instructions. The DNA molecule is a coded language of millions of cells programmed to build  organs and systems of immense specified complexity that all work together in harmony. The cell is organized like a city of machines working  together to maintain life in millions of unique life forms. To say nature's blind mindless forces can accomplish all this by chance is like saying red, white and blue confetti dropped from a plane a trillion times will form an American flag. The DNA molecule is not an accident of nature, it's a cells instructions designed by the personal intelligence and will we know as God.
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Moreover, aren't life forms irreducibly complex? A million small steps must be shown to prove a single cell can evolve into all life forms. Fruit flies live only a few days so that many generations can be radiation tested. Such testing produced only defective fruit flies, nothing else. There are no partly evolved reproductive or digestive systems, or limps or eyes and ears. Animals are born fully functioning, or won't live. Evolution isn't proven by extinct dinosaurs and monkey skulls. Artists drawings of the evolutionary tree is a gap theory without transitional links. Their pictures of a knuckle-walking monkey evolving into an upright man shows the theory can be pictured when the evidence can't be found. Died out life forms only prove they were not adoptable.  Huge gaps exist between life forms that are irreducibly complex. Now, doesn't this imply a Common Creator rather than a common ancestor?
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 Atheists claim science and reason prove evolution and disprove religion. But if the universe evolved by chance and our ancestors by accident from monkeys and perhaps rodents and roaches, how then can we have confidence that we are rational. Different sciences use different methods, physical sciences differ from social sciences. Science has nothing to say about crucial fields of history, law, aesthetics, and ethics. Science assumes that the external world exists, is orderly, knowable, uniform, that our minds and senses are reliable, numbers exist, the laws of logic work, and that truth exists and can be known. Evolutionary scientists devise new explanations to replace disproven ones. Scientists in all fields differ among themselves. Its hard to see where evolutionary science has the last word. And if all is an accident of  chance, how can we trust human reason?
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 World religions are based upon the thinking, beliefs and teachings of some admired wise man.  They present conflicting ideas about god, the world's  problems, salvation by what they mean by good deeds, and their speculations about the afterlife. What few writings we have of the founders beliefs is usually dated centuries after their deaths which makes them uncertain. They don't give evidence of anything beyond their founders valued philosophy of life. But details of  Jesus' life were predicted centuries before about his virgin birth, sinless life, miracles, death for us sinners, and resurrection. They were published during the lifetime of persons who knew him. (For more explanation, see my other articles.)

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Bible Christianity tells of a God who acts in our world. The Bible is said to record the actions of a real God who acts in our real world. It tells about the world from creation to recreation. It names kings, priests, cities, wars, and dates events archaeologists can correlate with statements of other nations and times to know such things existed. Bible events do not read like fairy tales, but like real people act in the real world with all their problems, evils, joys and sufferings. It's embarrassing that Bible heroes failed so often and so bad, but it's evidence that truth was more important than fiction. Unlike other holy books, the Bible records hundreds of predictions and miracles eyewitness knew were true, even affirming with their life's blood. Persons, places, and events critics denied existed, have been dug up from the ground. God showed His awesome presence in many ways from Genesis to Revelation. Could it be that the real reason atheists reject their Creator,  ridicule His people, and ignore its evidence is that they don't want God to interfer with their selfish desires?

Atheism has no higher authority than limited, conflicting, human opinions. Life without God ending in death destroys the basis for human dignity, ethics, freedom, love, justice, a rational purposeful world, absolute truth, empirical science, and hope for life after death. Atheists as Satre, Camus, and Russell admit this, but were inconsistently passionate about ethical issues. Richard Dawkins, for example, vigorously condemns harassment of homesexuals, and religious education  of children. Atheism is a philosophy of despair that when followed leads to hatred, chaos, warfare, and self-destruction of individuals, homes, and nations.
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Biblical Christianity gives good reasons that Jesus is the God-man who walked among us, died to save us, arose from the dead to prove all He told us was God's truth and our only hope. Jesus said, "The thief's purpose is to steal, and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life" (John 10:10). Dear reader, won't you say, Lord, Jesus, I'm a sinner, but I don't want eternal separation from the holy pure love-life You give. I surrender my life to you now forever. I trust you from this point on as my Lord and Savior. Now I'll share these articles and get with God's people in proof that I mean it. Thank you for giving me eternal life.
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